Generally speaking, we try to buy the most with our money and still get by. Not the Duggars. Their motto is to buy the least and still get by. Or more accurately in Michelle’s words “Buy used and save the difference.”
Who knew that having a large family would be so intriguing? After all, our grandmothers themselves had many children and it wasn’t considered a strain on planet Earth-or worse, contributing to overpopulation. (Which is a myth, by the way.) Having home church, home school and dressing modestly was the way our Grandmothers and Great Grandmothers lived, and we consider them saints. Yet, read a number of liberally minded boards on the internet and you’d swear the Duggars came from another planet because they do these very things.
I was introduced like so many other TLC viewers to the Duggars via Monday night television. I was curious, more than anything, how they got to the place of being on television showing the world how to manage a home of 20. Enter the book The Duggars: 20 and Counting. I pre-ordered, anticipating the day the mailman would bring it to my doorstep so I could see for myself how they got where they got.
The keys to their success could be summed up in few words-patience, prayer, being saving minded as opposed to spending minded, Michelle and Jim Bob being on the same page with each other, and loving God and each other as much as themselves.
It’s not like the Duggars live in a shack or do without-they have a far bigger and better house than most Americans and that is their reward for saving-not spending. They have this monster of a house that their own hands labored to build and pay for as they went along. Note to the doubters: it does pay off in the long run to be savers.
But the most important lesson of all is that they teach their children to make a difference in this world by their actions and their decisions, which is their personal conviction, they are quick to say. I say, put one of their children next to the standard American child and no one would be able to deny a Duggar is the better of the two-well behaved, able to use self control, with a well rounded education. (Complete with life lessons as well as the 3 R’s)
I’m thinking it just might be worth applying some of their strategies to my life. It won’t be easy, but even a mom can learn to use some self control.
234 pages
Howard Books (A division of Simon and Schuster publishing)
released Dec 2008
Order here
